Ten years on

  It is hard to believe, but it has been ten years since I first started this blog. A lot has happened in those ten years, but I am still in business and still making beautiful things. Over the past five years I have been so busy as to not really have time for this blog, but I have made a renewed commitment, this year, to keep after it.

The 7th century box as it now stands

Back in September of 2018 I introduced a new project, which I am calling a "7th Century Box". At that point, I had made the lid and carved part of the front face as well as one end. I had actually started the project in the late winter or early spring, before I left the country on a six month project. It was only after I returned that I made the time to publish anything about it. 

Time has marched on, as it always insists on doing, and more parts of it got done. A year and four months after the first post, I had finished all the carving, (so I thought, until I discovered this month, that I had missed a few bits) on the lid and had made the legs. By may of 2020, I was done with the front and back panels. A bit over a year ago, I finished one end, but that did not seem like enough of an achievement to be worth posting about. This past December, I started working on it, again, with the hopes of posting a finished box on the tenth anniversary of this blog.

 

All four panels finished, The end panel on the left was done in December of 2023

 

That did not happen for several reasons, but at least it is now together and ready for painting and gilding. I will be doing another post about that process, once it is completely finished. This posting was supposed to have happened last Wednesday, but I somehow messed up my editing page and had no idea how to fix it, Thank you, Thomas, for showing me what was wrong, and fixing it for me. Now I can continue with my blogging.

This past December, in addition to working on this box, I also worked on finishing up another box that I started on even longer ago. I mostly had to do the finishing, as well as making the hinges and affixing the lid.

16th century style box with painted decorations

The other end. Milk-paint was used for the decorations

I also had, in December, a lectern to restore. (Or more accurately, reinvent) It had been made from some left over parts from an old cabinet, with some added mouldings and a plywood top and back, which I found very offensive. I decided to make those parts over, and in an "authentic" manner. I got the inspiration for the carving from the above depicted box, which I did several years ago. Somehow, it seemed fitting, and the client loved the finished product.

Carving 120 year old oak was a tough job but I managed

The podium in its new home, where it will serve as a hostess' desk

Back to my box, Here are a few more pictures of it going together and getting ready to be finished.

Newly assembled

This was supposed to show the other end, but somehow it has the same end, again

One other thing that needed to happen was to make a bottom for it. For that, like the rest, I sawed it by hand, so as to keep it as authentic as possible. No machinery has touched any part of this box since the sawmill cut the timbers that were used for it. I used a white oak plank and cut it to about 15mm thick.

Good thing I got this done before all the ice and snow

After the assembly, it was sealed with "size" which is thinned down, freshly made hide glue. (I made that from soaking parchment scraps in water, then cooking the "juice" until I had glue. The size is a sort of "primer" for the gesso, to help that better adhere to the wooden surface.

With size applied

Some people will undoubtedly think I should have left this in its natural state, but I am replicating something that could have been in the 7th century; the taste at that time would have been very different than today. At that time, no one would have ever considered leaving such a finely carved box unfinished. Also, it was my intent, from the onset to paint it, or I would not have used two such widely different species of timber to make it.

The lid with a first coat of gesso

Scraping the gesso, This is the "old school" method of "sanding"

This shows the gesso before the scraping began

As of today, Sunday, 26 January, all of the gesso work is finished. I will let it cure for a few days before moving on to paint and gilding.

Videre Scire

Decorations for Utilitarian Objects

I love finding utilitarian objects which have been made beautiful by someone spending more time than was necessary to add ornamentation to them. In the Bauhaus movement, there arose a debate which ushered in a new way of seeing the making of objects, and was summed up with the phrase, "form follows function". This was a way of saying that a tool or object should first and foremost have a shape to it which suits its purpose. I have no problem with that notion, but I have no idea why that thought became licence for everything to be made without any beauty or art left to it. It is my opinion that the best approach to the question of design should be phrased as, "function has form", which is to say that even if it is functional, as it should be, it should also be pleasing to look at, and ornamented as nicely as possible, without sacrificing its usefulness.

To that end, I was delighted last week to see some objects that a long-time Romanian girlfriend of mine sent me from he home country. This type of object is called a "distaff" and they are made by her father-in-law. I was unaware of it, but apparently there is a long tradition all over Europe, Scandinavia, the Balkans and Russia of various forms of this type of artwork.

A "chip carved"spinning distaff made in Romania

A Distaff is an object used to hold the linen (or other) fibers whilst the spinner converts them into threads. It is a very utilitarian object, and came be made as plain and crude as someone wishes, and it will still do its job. I found a photo on Flicker, of two women using a very simple version in some reenactment event. I have no idea who or where they are, so I censored their identity; the purpose of the picture is to show how the object is used.

Two anonymous women demonstrating the traditional
method of spinning with a distaff 

Quite obviously, this tool does not need any decorations to be useful, but look at the following photos and see how much more pleasant such an object becomes when someone is willing to put into it more than the absolute minimum amount of effort necessary for its creation. When an Artist applies a bit of his soul to an object, that object takes on a soul of its own and becomes more than just a tool.

I have seen many beautiful things made in Romania since I first met the friend who sent these pictures in 1999 where she was demonstrating traditional Romanian egg-dying (another very intricate and beautiful art) at the annual Smithsonian Folk-life Festival in Washington DC. I also met a couple woodcarvers at the same time, and was impressed with the carved gate they were making at the time.
It is enjoyable for me to see people who work to keep traditional crafts, such as this, alive, and in so doing, make our modern sterile world a little less boring.

All of these objects have been decorated with what
is known as "chip carving" but this one has the
addition of having a pair of horses carved, a nice
little touch of creative originality.

9th Century Box - It is Still in Progress

I was astonished just now when I looked back through my posts and saw that it has been 13 months since I posted anything on my box project. (here is a link to that post from July 2016) Even though it has been that long, there has been a bit of movement on it from time to time. I had wanted to finish up the back before posting about it again, but the time keeps running and I do not want the project to go completely cold.

I am not sure why I didn't take any pictures of the second scene whilst I was working on it or when I finished it, but I never did. This one was taken today after I did a bit more fussing with it, as can be seen by the lighter areas.

Proetus, king of Tiryns

The back panel of this box will have five scenes from the story of Bellerophon, this is the second scene in which He goes to meet with Proetus, a king in the Mycenaean realm, seeking forgiveness for a crime he committed. As with medieval artists, I searched for existing models to guide my work. In the 9th century (and for many centuries after) People did not draw from life, they used other pictures, or relief sculptures as a guide and source of inspiration. The fact that art styles continued to change tells us, however, that artists still used their own creativity and the influences of the styles around them in creating their own work based on those models. An example of this method can be seen from the way I used the following image from the 9th century Stuttgart Psalter as a model for my Proetus. (This Psalter is the model for most of my images on this side of the box)

A king on a throne, but this scene has a religious context, as evidenced
by the gospel book he holds on his knee

I carved most of this scene back in April, but did not finish it until last week. My museum adventures in Europe gave me the inspiration to get back to work on the project again. I have been so busy with my job that I have not been able to work on the box, but I decided that busy or not, I will make time for this project at least once every two weeks so that eventually it will get completed. I am ahead of the game, because I worked on finishing up the Proetus scene and began the next scene last weekend. This week I continued where I left off and worked another six hours. (about all my neck can take bent over working on such small detail) I took a Picture of where I was when I started today.

The beginning of scene three

In the Story, Bellerophon meets with the king who wines and dines him as a guest. Later in the story, he goes to king Lobates who is Proetus' father-in-law, who feasts with him for another 9 days. Instead of doing two separate banquet scenes, this one stands in for both. This is a typical medieval practice of combining events of different places and times into a single scene.

Two hours later

The further I progress with this carving, the slower the work goes because I keep going back and working over previously "finished" areas. Such was the case today, so much so, that nearly two of the six hours I spent went into "cleaning up" previous work. After looking at the pictures taken for this post, I can see several areas that will require more work the next go-round as well. Sometimes one sees things in the photos that they did not notice in life.

Another hour gone by; the drapery is complete and the table has begun

About an hour after this picture, the sun came around the corner of the workshop and provided perfect lighting to show off the carving (and lots of areas that wanted fixing!)

Dramatic afternoon sunlight; perfect for carving, but it only lasted half an
hour before disappearing behind the trees

Though I am mainly using the Stuttgart Psalter as the model for this project, it does not serve completely, because there are no scenes of people feasting at a table in the manuscript. I find this quite odd considering that the Utrecht Psalter, (another of only four still existing 9th century examples) has at least 20 scenes with tables. In fact ,that was where I turned for a model of my table in this scene. Some people might find it shocking, given that we are constantly being told that "medieval tables were comprised of planks of wood set on trestles" (sometimes they were, but this is mostly a lot of rubbish) but early medieval tables continued to follow Roman forms, and thus, many tables had lion-formed legs and were of a round 'tripod' type as the one pictured below.

Into the first half of the Middle Ages, tables continued to follow Roman forms
this illustration comes from the 9th century Utrecht Psalter

In doing this project I have also been consulting actual ivory carvings from the 9th century to try to get a sense of the way an image would have been translated from a two-dimensional drawing to a three-dimensional relief carving. I found this image from a book cover in the Aachen Cathedral treasury quite useful.

A carving of people eating at a round table; Note that there are
no legs pictured on the table. This became a trend and is especially
prevalent in 10th through 12th century artwork, and very exasperating for
someone interested in medieval furniture.
(obviously the table had legs, it was just a fad to not bother picturing them)

As the sixth hour drew on, my neck began to tire and I made a couple of stupid (though minor) mistakes. I realised it was time to pack up for the day. Here is the panel as it stands at the moment. You can see I did a bit of borrowing from the ivory illustration for some of my figures.

The panel is a bit more than half finished now. I am in the midst of scene
three, but the final scene is shorted than the others so I have actually done
more than half of the length

.

A Bit of Gold Leafing

Last summer I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Passing through one of the rooms that had nothing medieval in it, I paused to snap a quick shot of an early 18th century staircase balustrade which I found fascinating. Since my purpose was searching for medieval things, I did not spend much time looking at it, but later, on going through my photos I was especially attracted to the finials on the newel posts. One evening, over wine and cheese, my clients and I were looking through these pictures together and they were also impressed with the finial. They asked me to create a set suitable for their staircase.

Zooming in on the original (horrible) photo I took of the
balustrade

The MET had a much better picture on their website

Because the size of the original finials are slightly more than twice the size of mine, it was necessary to make some adjustments to the design. One example is that the original has raised dots on the segments of the 'head' but they would have been very difficult to make on the scale I was working with so I opted to make indentations instead. They are carved with the gouge and then punched.

A ompleted finial and another, sans base, in the background;
These are less than half the size of the originals

I still have not gotten around to gold leafing my 9th century candlestick that I made almost two years ago. It was supposed to have been a practice piece for doing some gold leafing before jumping into my client's project. Sometimes life does not like to follow our plans, and I have gone through several hundred leaves of gold doing things for the client already. Until now, however, all of the leafing that I have done has involved the process of painting on a ground, using a water based latex mastic and then applying the leaf. This method is much faster than traditional "water gilding" but the results are less spectacular.

True gilding involves applying a gesso ground which is made from gypsum and hide glue. To get a good base, several coats must be used, and sanding and scraping must be done between each coat to remove blemishes whilst maintaining the details of the carving. Once the gesso is finished, a further two or three layers of "red bole" (yellow is also sometimes used, but I like the red) is applied. This is basically the same as the gesso, but red brick dust is traditionally used. The purpose is to give a tough smooth surface which can withstand the pressure used in burnishing the gold. The animal glue in the bole becomes tacky with the application of a little water, (hence the term, "water gilding) allowing the leaf to adhere to the object being gilded.

One finial with a layer of gesso and two with sizing; ready for the
first coat of gesso

I am sure I did not invent this method, and most probably many other people have used it, but as a way of eliminating a couple steps in the above mentioned process, I thought of another way that might give the same results. I used a mixture which in medieval times was referred to as "glaire". This is a mixture of size (very thin animal glue) and egg white. This can be brushed on like latex mastic and, so long as it stays wet, will work the same. One difference, though, is that you cannot disturb the gold until the glaire has dried, but once dry, the gold can be burnished to a bright lustre.

Partially gilded finial

Completely gilded.

My intent was to gild some areas to be burnished brightly, and then do the rest with the faster latex mastic. This would give "highlights" to the gold and create more variation in the colour. 

For the second one, I decided to burnish the base as well;
the results are spectacular
(I wound up doing two with each method)

Once the gilding is done, I add a bit of transparent dye
to give the gold a bit more 'gold' colour
it actually looks pale and dead to me without the glaze

Another thing I like to do is add a bit of burnt umber glazing to give more definition to the colour and add some more character to the piece. My clients and I have very similar tastes in gilded objects, so this if fairly easy for me. They are delighted with the results. 

A finished finial

Something From Thin Air (and paint)

As a kid I used to dream up all sorts of creations that I wanted to do, and inevitably if I showed my drawings of them to anyone they would ask me how I planned to make whatever it was that I had designed, because at the time I did not have the skill set or the workshop full of tools to do such things. Very often I would hear the expression, "you can't make something out of thin air". Maybe that is true, but the art of painting actually comes very close. With some paint and brushes, one can bring forth entire universes - or at least a marble fireplace, as I have done here.

A  bit of carving and some paint and you have a marble
mantelpiece

I did a post a few weeks ago about my dining room project, and said that there would be only one more post on the project; technically that is still true, because this post is not about the dining room, but only the fireplace in it. As with most things I have done for this client, the project expands as it goes, so what was originally to have been a ceiling medallion and a large oval moulding filling up the entire field, has morphed into a fairly substantial renovation of the entire room.

The first addition to the project was to "enhance" the mantle. Since they wanted to keep the fabric on the walls, I opted not to disturb the structural framework of the mantle. This meant to say that I had to design enhancements and alterations that would turn the "American Colonial" style fireplace into a "French Louis XVI" one. (this is not so difficult since both styles originate from the same time period and fall into the "neoclassical" style) I achieved this mostly by carving the curved posts for the front, to replace the original applied fluting strips. This pushed the overall depth of the mantle out, so it was necessary to make a new top. My friend Steffen from Meisterbuilders Inc made the top for me; I designed it with a bit of curved step-out to the front edge because a simple rectangle would have been just too boring.

The original fireplace

Partially dismantled mantel structure

Newly rebuilt and with the first stages of  the faux finish

I often have trouble remembering to take pictures, or forget the camera, or the card, or, in the case this time, the battery went flat and I kept forgetting to charge it for about a week; thus there are not more progress pictures.

The finished marbling. The compo ornaments are flexible if they are heated
with steam, but that also activates the hide glue which is one of the primary
components of their makeup. Thus when they are bent round the wooden core
they are also glued to it.

The clients had wanted me to simply get some ornaments, gild them, and then apply them, but I explained to them that it would require some structural changes as well in order to achieve a look that would suit their vision for the room. I did use applied ornaments, however; these are not things that I made this time.. I bough ready made compo ornaments, and then used gold leaf and paint to give them the look of ormolu mounts.

Some of the applied compo ornaments
"Compo" is an ancient product, which is used to produce casting of carvings;
it is a combination of hide glue, oil, and plaster. Most picture frames one sees in
museums are ornamented with this type of product, and then gilded.

Actually, I am still very much a novice with the gilding thing, as I had only done one small frame before this project. I still have not actually tried the "water gilding" process. The process used on this project is called "oil gilding", and is accomplished by brushing on a "sizing" to the surface, and then applying the leaf once the oil has dried to a tacky finish. This client does not like things to look too bright and polished so I developed a method of applying the leaf to most of the surface and then painting the rest with a gold paint. This serves as a "glaze" over the whole surface and reduces the brightness but still allows the metal surface to show; the red primer and gold paint look darker by contrast, giving it a sort of "antiqued" look. I did not take pictures of the process whilst doing the ornaments for the mantel but here are a couple pictures which show the stages on some plaster ornaments which will go over the mirror that incorporate the same method.

Here you can see unfinished plaster, plaster with red oxide undercoat, and
another object which has been (mostly) leafed

Another festoon with gold paint applied over the leaf

In planning these modifications to the mantel, I suggested to them that we do the it in a faux marble finish as opposed to simply using the ivory white of the rest of the room. I was happy when they agreed to that, because I really enjoyed doing the marble panels in the passage and foyer and wanted to try to create something even more convincing this time. (I always strive to make each new project better than the last) Just as I was finishing up the painting a representative from a design/build firm was in the house asking me about the my previous faux marble work; I mentioned to him that I had just finished painting the mantle and he was surprised. "oh", he said, "I thought that was real marble" I guess I achieved to some degree, at least, what I was after.

View of the mantel shelf
(I have also made and gilded the mirror frame, but that is a topic
for the last post on the dining room project as a whole)

An antique French marble mantel which was my inspiration for this project I
did not try to copy the colour because the client thought the veins were too dark.
(picture from the "web")

The completed mantel

Anyone paying attention will also notice that the fireplace surround and the hearth have been replaced. I could have done a simple slab like the black granite which I removed, but that would have been way to pedestrian for me. I was so happy to find the perfect pink marble to compliment the room. What I did not realise was how difficult finding nice pure white marble would be, but obviously, I succeeded, those bits are not faux anything.

My job is a lot of fun!